This post is just a pointer, for now, to some disturbing news in Congressional testimony by the managing director of the Markle Foundation via eWeek, in an article entitled Report: HHS Has Weak Plan for Health IT Privacy.
Carol Diamond, managing director of the Markle Foundation, said that health IT in the United States is "missing a strong policy framework that would protect people's health information."
She advocated adopting policies such as limiting use of information and making sure data storage is decentralized. However, she also noted that Congress was considering the statutory authority of several federal organizations created by President Bush, including the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the American Health Information Community, a brainstorming group consisting of industry and government leaders. Diamond suggested that the organizations that "initiate" actions may not be appropriate for longer-term implementation and policy making. She called for a highly visible independent mechanism to hear public complaints.
You can find Carol's testimony in full at this location: http://www.markle.org/downloadable_assets/caroldiamond_february12007final.pdf
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